Open Source Community

What College Students Do (And Don't) Know About Open Source Software

Given the rapid growth of open source, it seems reasonable to expect that undergraduate students in computer science or software engineering programs would graduate with an understanding of open source and the ability to make project contributions. However, most students are not being taught core tools and concepts such as licenses, version control, and issue trackers as part of their degree program.

This special episode of Community Central shares the results of recent research anthropologist Matt Bernius conducted for Mozilla on the state of undergraduate education around open source software. Matt will also discuss the gap between undergraduate computing education and community expectations, and explore both the reasons for the gap and approaches to bridging it.

The video below is part of an internal webcast we host from the Open Source and Standards team, but we thought given the topic and its importance, it was well worth sharing with everyone.

About
Brian Proffitt

Brian Proffitt is the Principal Community Analyst for
Open Source and Standards team at Red Hat, responsible for community metrics, onboarding, and support. A former technology journalist,
Brian is also a graduate lecturer at the University of Notre Dame.
Follow him on Twitter @TheTechScribe